Strike One: When it was reported that former Colorado Rockies pitcher Chad Bettis had signed a free agent contract with the New York Yankees this past winter, Rockies Nation let out a collective, “Oh know, not another one.” On the heels of DJ LeMahieu, Adam Ottovino and Mike Tauchman trading purple pinstripes for New York’s navy blue ones, Colorado fans were starting to feel like another Yankee farm club.
Truth be told, Ottovino – a native New Yorker – always wanted a chance to go home, and Tauchman remains a fourth or fifth outfielder on any big league team. Only the unnecessary loss of LeMahieu really still stings at this point.
Losing Bettis in terms of on-the-field contribution? Really no loss at all in 2020. He wasn’t going to pitch for Colorado this year, regardless.
This past week, Bettis acknowledged what most observers already knew: It was time for him to hang ‘em up. Give the 31-year-old right hander a ton of credit for knowing “when to say when.”
On the mound, Bettis had a miserable 2019, going 1-6 with an ERA over 6.00. It was clear that his best days – even his ability to contribute meaningful inning at the big league level – were over. It’s really hard to explain why the Yankees even signed him last winter.
Bettis certainly had his moments on the field during his seven-year career. In 2016 he made 32 starts and posted a 14-8 record. He was a mainstay. But in December of that year, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He had surgery, but still had to undergo chemotherapy in 2017. His return and recovery put Lance Armstrong to (further) shame. He came back from months of chemo to start a game for the Rockies in their play-off year of 2017. He threw seven scoreless innings in a 3-0 win over Atlanta at an emotionally charged Coors Field.
Bettis gave his team a big lift when they needed it most. Still, the disease had obviously taken a toll on him physically. He never had the same stuff after coming back. Nor should he have ever been expected to. Just the fact that he could come back at all and compete at a high level – during the same calendar year he had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments – is nothing short of astonishing.
For his career, Bettis was a .500 pitcher: 31-31 with a 5.12 ERA. (Ahem…there’s certainly nothing wrong with being a .500 big league pitcher, btw.) While Cooperstown won’t be calling for what he did on the field, his story of perseverance and grit in the face of a potentially fatal disease should be honored permanently in some fashion at his former home ballpark. Bettis retires with little fanfare, but with the undying admiration of all baseball fans who watched his courageous and inspirational battle with cancer from afar. A tip of the unused baseball cap from this corner, and best wishes to a true Rockies legend.
Strike Two: Stadium and arena naming rights are a fickle deal. In some cases, it can be a big boost for a company to be able to put its name on a huge sports cathedral. In other cases, it can be a big ‘ol albatross.
The secret seems to be in the timing. When a brand new project like a lower downtown baseball stadium is dubbed early on – well before the first game is played, as “Coors Field” it typically reflects well on the company that spent money on those naming rights. Now a quarter century old and the third oldest stadium in the National League, the place at 20th and Blake is affectionately known as “The Keg.”
Contrast that with the problems across the highway, where the locals play professional football.
To their credit, the folks that ran old Mile High Stadium never did try to slap a corporate logo on the place. It was and forever will be “Mile High.” But when a new one was build next door in 2001, the Denver Broncos and the Stadium Authority sought to bring in some extra cash by selling the naming rights to an outfit that no one had heard of and didn’t have much of a presence in the market. “Invesco” didn’t get much for their money. They aren’t even called Invesco anymore. A poll showed that 70% of fans still wanted their football field to be called Mile High Stadium. It was not money well spent.
Same fate (for a different reason) awaited Sports Authority when they became the new naming rights sponsor of the 10-year old facility. Sports Authority signed a 25-year deal but only managed to make it through seven seasons before horrific corporate ownership policies caused the once proud sporting good chain (which had swallowed up Denver’s historic “Gart Bros”) to go belly up. In 2019, the place got it’s third name, Empower Field.
And the fans would still prefer it to be called “Mile High Stadium.” That’s not great if you’re the new naming rights sponsor.
Which brings us to the third big venue in town, the Pepsi Center, built and christened as such in the fall of 1999. For two decades, the facility has been known by just one name. The owners/builders of the place, Kroenke Sports, have pocketed almost $70 mil over that time – but most importantly – the fans know and love it by that name. It’s “The Can” to many.
The original naming rights deal between Pepsi Cola and Kroenke Sports expired after the 2019 season – but was extended for one year. Now that year is over with the relocation of the end of the NBA and NHL season. Unless something has or is happening behind the scenes that has not been leaked or made public, the building is essentially a free agent.
What are the options for the parties involved? By all reports, no one in the food industry – beverages included – has suffered financially during the pandemic. Pepsi should be in fine shape to extend the deal…if they want to. In reality, to most of us, the place will ALWAYS be known as the Pepsi Center, whether it gets a new name or not. Maybe the PepsiCo execs know that too?
If you’re Kroenke Sports, can you expect to get another significant naming rights deal – another $70 mil for the next two decades? Probably not, but you never know. Do you offer Pepsi a sweetheart deal to keep things the way they are? Selling a lot of soda inside the arena is a nice perk for the partnership.
One thing seems obvious: If they put a new name on the two decade old arena, no one is going to he happy about it…including whoever becomes the new naming rights partner.
Strike Three: With everything that’s been happening within baseball, football and basketball related to the pandemic, football has been off on the sidelines, awaiting its turn, and probably not anxious for the time to arrive. But it’s getting close.
Of all the sports that would seem to be most vulnerable to total postponement due to the virus, football would seem to be near or at the top of the list. How do you keep in any way “sanitary” or be a safe distance away or avoid contact with others in a game that’s a collision sport? In other words, how can we possibly play the game of football with the coronavirus once again on the rampage?
It’s a question that has yet to be answered, but they’re most certainly trying to find answers. College players have been working out – with A LOT of confirmed cases being reported – and everyone seems busy setting up protocols for a season with no fans in the stands. How this will work on a college campus is anyone’s guess at this point.
One thing the NFL is reportedly doing – and if it works you can be sure the college game will follow suit – is to develop a new face mask for football helmets. It’s been reported that the folks at Oakley – the sunglasses maker – are developing a clear, full length visor to protect not just players eyes, as we’ve seen already on many helmets – but their entire face. This would be to limit the exchange of particles that come from the mouth and nose…the same reason most of us are wearing our masks when we go out and about.
The main issue is the fogging up of the visors – as anyone who’s worn sunglasses and a mask at the same time can attest to. Oakley thinks they have that problem solved, so the visors may very well be standard equipment this season. (If there is a season.)
And it makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Helmets started out as leather with no face masks at all. As they’ve evolved, they’ve become integral to player safety. New ones are being developed to help with concussions. So, it’s a natural evolution to someday replace the current face mask with something that looks more like a motorcycle helmet, right?
That would eliminate one of the penalties that referees have to keep an eye out for. No more grabbing the face mask. Again, a boost for player safety.
Football has a lot of issues that need to be resolved if they’re going to play at all in the COVID-19 era. That goes with the territory when you’re the sport that features the most “mask gatherings.”